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Resources updated between Monday, February 08, 2016 and Sunday, February 14, 2016

February 14, 2016

The Israeli ambulance at scene of attack

A Palestinian teen was seriously wounded after attempting to stab Border Police officers near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Sunday afternoon.

One of the officers opened fire, seriously wounding the assailant. No other casualties were reported.

The assailant, 14-year-old Yasmin A-Tamimi, a resident of Hebron, was rushed to the Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Israel Police said in a statement: "A Palestinian woman arrived at the Border Police post near the Cave of the Patriarchs, drew a knife, tried to stab one of the officers at the roadblock and he fired at her."

A Palestinian man attempted to carry out a stabbing attack at a checkpoint in southeastern Jerusalem on Sunday, and was subsequently shot and later died of his wounds.

The Palestinian man arrived at the Masmuria checkpoint near Har Homa in East Jerusalem, where according to police he ran toward Military Police soldiers while wielding a knife. One of the policemen shot and wounded him, police added.
No Israel security personnel were wounded in the incident.

Four border police were slightly injured on Saturday in a suspected car ramming attack outside a military base near Ma'ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, in the West Bank.

Magen David Adom emergency medical services were dispatched to the scene, and said that three Israeli soaldiers, aged 21, 29, and 43, and a fourth border police officer were transported to hospital with light injuries.

Israeli police report that that during routine operations in the area, officers identified two Palestinians crossing the security fence and approaching a vehicle waiting on the Israeli side.

A border police team was dispatched to the scene and approached the vehicle, which had been caught in a traffic jam, on foot.

The suspects attempted to flee the scene, hitting a civilian car before attempting to ram their vehicle into the police officers.

The suspects continued driving after shots had been fired, and slammed into the vehicle of a second police team blocking the road.

The Secretary General introduced a "Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism" in January 2016. The General Assembly took up the plan on February 12, 2016. The genocidal Assad regime's contribution was to blame the democratic state of Israel for supporting terrorism and religious discrimination, and to ridicule the very idea of the "rule of law." In its words:

"My delegation stresses that efforts of preventing violent extremism will not succeed unless the international community put an end to the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan and other occupied Arab territories, and stop the violent extremism and terrorism perpetrated by Israeli settlers against the Arab citizens living under occupation. The Israeli violent extremism is backed by the extreme Israeli governments that refused and rejected international legitimacy resolutions, and seeks to create, in the occupied territories, a one religion state that excludes the followers of other faiths...The Secretary-General repeats in his plan the term 'rule of law' in an exaggerated manner in order to create the impression that this term is one of the pillars of the United Nations enshrined in the Charter, although ... there is no agreed definition for this term, and that there is a split in the positions of Member States on 'rule of law'..."

A man carries a child from a building following a reported barrel bomb attack by Syrian government forces on Aleppo. Some 50,000 people have fled the recent upsurge in fighting there. (Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty)

There is a dangerous scam gaining traction at the United Nations, backstopped by the White House. It's called "violent extremism." Given the U.N.'s long and undistinguished history of being unable to define terrorism, and an American president who chokes on the words "radical Islamic terrorism," pledges to combat "violent extremism" have become all the rage.

It turns out that the terminological fast one is a lethal diplomatic dance that needs to be deconstructed, and quickly.

In 1999, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) adopted an "anti-terrorism" treaty stating that "armed struggle against foreign occupation, aggression, colonialism and hegemony, aimed at liberation and self-determination...shall not be considered a terrorist crime."

In practice, that means it is open season on all Israelis, as well as Americans and Europeans who get in the way. Each of the 56 Islamic states, and what the UN labels the "State of Palestine," is a party to this treaty.

The September 11 terror attacks then launched a growth industry in U.N. counter-terrorism chit-chat and paraphernalia.

Year-after-year, Islamic states have prevented the adoption of a UN Comprehensive Convention Against Terrorism by refusing to abandon their claim that certain targets are exempt.

In 2001 the U.N. Security Council created the Counter-Terrorism Committee. But it is unable to name a state sponsor of terrorism. In fact, from 2002 to 2003, Syria, a state sponsor of terrorism, was a member.

In 2005 the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, once chaired by Colonel Qaddafi's Libya, created the U.N. expert on "the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism" – as if countering terror is not about protecting human rights.

In 2006 the General Assembly adopted a Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. It manages to cast terrorists as victims. "Pillar Number One" starts by worrying about "conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism." "Youth unemployment," for instance, purportedly results in "the subsequent sense of victimization that propels extremism and the recruitment of terrorists."

In 2011 the UN established the Counter-Terrorism Center – at the initiative of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis threw $100 million at the venture and became chair of the "Advisory Board." Saudi financing of radical charities and "academic" exercises around the world are somehow left out of Center events on investigating and prosecuting terror financing.

Integral to the-best-defense-is-a-good-offence routine, has been the constant unsubstantiated allegation of an "Islamophobia" pandemic.

For the first decade of the 21st century, the Islamophobia charge was hurled in UN resolutions on the "defamation" of Islam or the "defamation of religion." Defamation meant the freedoms of human beings should be trumped by the "rights" of "religion."

In 2009 "defamation" was repackaged by the General Assembly as "human rights and cultural diversity." Ever since, the over 100 countries of the "Non-aligned movement" vote against Western states and demand the freedoms of human beings be trumped by "cultural diversity." And that's cultural diversity Iran-style. In December 2015, the UN resolution praised Tehran's Centre for Human Rights and Cultural Diversity – the brainchild of former Iranian President and well-known human rights aficionado Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In the last six weeks alone, Islamic states have staged two UN meetings focusing on "Islamophobia and inclusive societies," and "countering xenophobia." Two weeks ago, the servile Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon couldn't mention "antisemitism" on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz without connecting it to "anti-Muslim bigotry."

Of course, the Islamophobia drumbeat skips right over the xenophobia, antisemitism, and exclusivity that is endemic – and officially-sanctioned – in Islamic states.

This is the substrate from which Ban Ki-moon has now manufactured a "Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism." Introduced in January, the General Assembly is meeting on February 12, 2016 to push the plan forward.

After one mention of "ISIL, Al-Qaida and Boko Haram," the Plan insists that violent extremism "does not arise in a vacuum. Narratives of grievance, actual or perceived injustice...become attractive." "It is critical that in responding to this threat," stresses the Plan, that states be stopped from "overreacting." Topping "conditions conducive to violent extremism" is "lack of socioeconomic opportunities."

Here we go again. The bigots, fanatics and killers are allegedly driven by our annoying insistence on fighting back – which the Plan astonishingly calls "the cycle of insecurity and armed conflict."

As per usual in U.N. negotiations, the Obama administration has jumped on board while Islamic states are holding out for greater elaboration of their grievances and even more "nothing to do with religion or Islam" clauses.

The U.N.'s idea of a win-win is an illusory "global partnership to confront this menace" that allows states to define violent extremism any which way they want: "This Plan of Action pursues a practical approach to preventing violent extremism, without venturing to address questions of definition."

Only U.N. con-artists could present refusing to identify a problem as the most practical way to solve it.

More practically speaking, the latest Palestinian terror wave began by pumping bullets into a young mom and dad in front of their little kids for the crime of being Jews living and breathing on Arab-claimed land. In U.N. terminology, Eitam and Naama Henkin were "extremist settlers."

So to all you extremist lovers of liberty: beware the violent extremists in U.N. clothing, and the morally-challenged commanders in chief bringing up the rear.

An 11-year-old Jewish boy was stabbed and wounded Monday in an attack in the central Israeli town of Ramle.

The attacker fled the scene, apparently toward the Jawaresh neighborhood of the city.

The boy was hospitalized with moderate injuries, the Magen David Adom emergency service said. The child said that the assailant was an Arab. A 17-year-old Arab youth was arrested a short time later on suspicion of carrying out the attack.

The victim said he was walking down the street when an Arab teen asked him for a lighter, and stabbed him when he answered he did not have one.

Police had set up roadblocks in and around Ramle and deployed a helicopter in an effort to find the attacker.

Police said the incident was being investigated, and it was not initially clear if the attack had a nationalistic or criminal motive.

According to police, the boy ran home after being stabbed with scissors, and his mother called for help.

Earlier this week, a guard at the bus station in the working class city was lightly injured when he was stabbed by two 13-year-old girls in a nationalistic attack. One of the girls' mothers subsequently apologized for her daughter's action.

Later Monday afternoon, Jerusalem police guarding the Damascus Gate area near the Old City arrested an Arab woman carrying a large knife.

The woman, around 42 years of age, aroused their suspicions and they asked to search her, uncovering the blade, police said.

Last week, border policewoman Hadar Cohen was killed and another policewoman injured when three Palestinian men carried out a shooting and stabbing attack in the same area.

Jewish Israeli woman was stabbed and wounded Saturday evening in the Bedouin town of Rahat, in southern Israel. She sustained moderate injuries to her neck and was hospitalized for treatment, where her condition was later defined as lightly injured.

Security forces were treating the stabbing as a terror attack. The attack occurred as the woman, Shlomit Gonen, 65, a grandmother from nearby Kibbutz Mishmar Hanegev, was shopping with family members in the town's open market.

Eyewitnesses said an Arab youth of about 20 years of age stabbed her before fleeing the scene. Large numbers of security forces were searching for the assailant, and set up roadblocks in the area.

Channel 2 said that the assailant was most likely a Palestinian in Israel illegally.

Local Rahat politicians condemned the killing, and urged the security forces to catch the terrorist as soon as possible.

An eyewitness to the attack identified only as Salam told Army Radio that "a youth in a red shirt and hat stabbed the woman and ran out of the market. The police arrived within 10 minutes and ambulances came even sooner."

A Magen David Adom paramedic who treated the wounded woman said that she was fully conscious. "We placed her in the [ambulance] and administered first aid treatment en route to the hospital," he said. The victim was taken to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.

The stabbing came during an upsurge in Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets, some deadly and many involving knives. On Thursday, two 13-year-old Arab Israeli girls stabbed and lightly wounded a security guard in their hometown of Ramle.

The soldier, 20, was taken to a local hospital with light wounds to his upper body, a spokesperson from the Magen David Adom rescue service said.

The stabber managed to get away after knifing the soldier. However, another soldier, who saw the incident transpire, took the victim's gun and chased after the attacker.

The soldier ran after the attacker for nearly 1.5 kilometers (one mile) before getting close enough to shoot and subdue him, police said.

The assailant suffered moderate to serious wounds on the scene and died a few hours later in Ashkelon's Barzilai Medical Center, a spokesperson for the hospital said.

The identity of the assailant was not immediately known, but according to police he was a Sudanese national.

After speaking with witnesses and a quick investigation, police determined the attack was likely nationalistic in nature.

"We are almost certain," Shimon Portal, head of the Ashkelon District Police, told reporters after the attack.

Stabbings, shootings and car bombings linked to the criminal underworld have been known to take place in the working-class seaside city, but the targeting of the soldier raised fears the attack was terror-related.

Bus and train stations in Israel are often crowded with soldiers on Sunday morning as troops return to base after weekend leave.

Paramedic Ariel Plaut said the victim was conscious and speaking during the trip to the hospital.

"We were driving when suddenly some civilians signaled us to stop. We saw an approximately 20-year-old man sitting on a bench. He was fully conscious with stab wounds to the upper body," Plaut said.

The stabbing came as forces have been searching for a suspect who stabbed a Jewish grandmother in the city of Rahat Saturday before escaping.

The woman sustained moderate injuries to her neck and was hospitalized for treatment, where her injuries were later defined as light.

The stabbings come during an upsurge in Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets, some deadly and many involving knives.

The last several days have also seen a number of attacks by Israeli Arabs.

On Thursday, two 13-year-old Arab girls stabbed and lightly wounded a security guard in their hometown of Ramle in central Israel.